I would say that the government is very proud of the PaTH program and the 25,000 jobs it's created, particularly for young Australians. As I said earlier today, it's very important that we give young Australians a start. So we make no apology for creating a very strong program that can do that. Read more

We've been focused on creating jobs for the last five years. We've been focused on creating jobs because the most important start for young Australians is the opportunity to have a job. It is great news for this country that more than a million jobs have been created over that period. Indeed 400,000 jobs, a record number of jobs, were created last year, in one calendar year.  Read more

Exporters are responsible for ensuring that they meet the animal welfare requirements under Commonwealth and state law. The investigation was conducted by the independent regulator, which the government fully supported, with a show cause notice and a suspension being issued.  Read more

The government has been well aware of the Incitec Pivot's challenges to supply an adequate amount of gas to its facility, and it is great news for Queensland and great news for Australia that, on Monday, Incitec Pivot was able to reach a deal with Central Petroleum for a 12-month 32-terajoules-a-day gas supply contract that will help keep that plant open. Read more

The first thing I would like to point out is that the formal vote that will be occurring in the Kimba and Hawker regions is only one input; it is not the only thing the government is doing through this process to judge community support. Yes, of course, that will be a very important factor; but we are also taking submissions and views from people who live outside the formal regions. Read more

As has been expressed by the government, the government is willing to assist the South Australian royal commission in its inquiry into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. However, there is no jurisdiction for a state based royal commission to use coercive powers against the Commonwealth, including its agencies and employees.  Read more

We have grown rich as a nation on our abundant cheap energy sources in our country, including our coal, our gas and our hydro resources down here in southern Australia. We are very lucky as a nation to have been given these resources and to be able to use them to underpin many industries that provide good, high-paying jobs for average Australians. This is because a cheap energy in this country means we can have dear wages in those industries. Read more

It is important to listen. But it is even more important that a government acts after listening to those concerns. Having spoken to Senator McKenzie after her roundtable, I know that she did hear from dairy farmers about how waiting times were too long to receive assistance through Centrelink and that sometimes the assets tests and how they were applied were not well suited to the farm sector—that they were more designed for non-farm individuals trying to access assistance. Because of that, the government has acted on those concerns. Read more

It is a happy moment for this country that we have recorded a record trade surplus on Friday just gone. In the latest statistics we now have a trade surplus of almost $6 billion—$5.8 billion. It has increased by $5.3 billion. It is a record amount. It is the highest amount on record in this nation. $3.2 billion of that $5.3 billion increase was down to an increase in mining and resources exports. So it was something that was driven by the resources sector in some sense. For the mining sector it was also a record amount of mining exports in December 2016 of $16 billion. That is a happy outcome for our nation, too. Read more

Often we think about the coal sector in this country as the exports that we provide to the rest of the world, and it is true that around 90 per cent of the coal we produce is exported to other countries. It provides those countries with a low-cost source of power and an ability to make steel, but, of course, it is still an essential part of our own energy mix. It accounts for just over 60 per cent of our electricity sources in this country. On the eastern seaboard, in the National Electricity Market, more than 70 per cent of our electricity is generated by coal. We need coal to keep the lights on in this country. We need coal to make sure that we can provide cheap, affordable and reliable power to our manufacturing sector. We need coal to help those jobs. Read more